May 2018

Part of the Peter Owen World Series: Baltics

Lithuania, 1941, Vincentas has made a Faustian pact with an SS officer: in exchange for his own safety and that of his Jewish lover, Judita, he will take photographs - `make art' - of the mass killings of Jews in the villages and forests of his occupied homeland. Learning of the pact that has kept her safe for so long, a disgusted Judita returns to her husband, surrendering herself to the ghetto, leaving Vincentas alone and trapped in his horrifying work.

Through the metaphor of photography, Sigitas Parulskis lays bare the passivity and complicity of many of his countrymen in the darkest chapter of Lithuania's recent history in which 94 per cent of its Jewish population perished.

Translated from the Lithuanian by Karla Gruodis.

The translation of this book was supported by the Lithuanian Culture Institute.

SIGITAS PARULSKIS (b. 1965, Obeliai) is the most celebrated and translated of Lithuania's contemporary writers. His first novel, 'Trys sekundes dangaus' ('Three Seconds of Heaven'), was published in 2008, and was inspired by his experiences serving in a parachute regiment in the GDR. In all, he has published three award-winning novels and numerous collections of poetry and essays.